Our Founder

St Eugene de Mazenod is the founder of our College.

Charles Eugene de Mazenod was born into the tumultuous world of Revolutionary France, the son of an aristocrat. Forced to flee France at the tender age of eight he grew to young adulthood amidst the dissipating pleasures of the aristocratic idleness of the various courts of Italy.

However, his life was changed dramatically by a deep spiritual experience at a Good Friday ceremony in 1807. He would go on to become priest, missionary, bishop, and founder of a world wide religious community called the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

One of his contemporary bishops once said:

“Go to Marseilles. There is a Bishop there whose Congregation is still small, but the man himself has a heart as big as St.Paul’s, as big as the world.”